Labor market is ‘red-hot’ amid inflation: Former CBO director

Former CBO Director and American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin argued on "Mornings with Maria," Thursday that the labor market is "red-hot" amid inflation and that Americans are quitting jobs at "record rates."

WITH RED-HOT INFLATION, NEW TEACHER SALARIES ARE 11% LESS THAN 30 YEARS AGO: REPORT

DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN: The labor market is red-hot. That's a historically low initial claims number, no question about it, and we have seen other indicators of a red-hot labor market… People are quitting at record rates. Why? They’re 1.7 jobs for everybody looking for a job. The gap between actual employment and listed openings is five million bigger than the labor force. There is no question that there's just a huge competition for labor out there. 

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The thing I'd remember is that this is the flip side of the same coin that gave us the inflation. The only way to get the six percentage point increase in CPI inflation was to overstimulate the economy, shows up in the job market as these kinds of numbers, but it's showing up every day… year over year. Twenty-five percent increases in energy prices year over year, 8.4 percent increases in the core food, energy and shelter that people have to spend… we're seeing that inflation show real legs because we're seeing the labor market stay this tight. 

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